1. People don’t buy needs, they buy wants. If you’re positioned as a ‘need’, they buy on price. Selling at the lowest price is rarely a good way to do business.
2. Businesses don’t buy based on quality, or the best presentation, or even, who’s a friend of the boss. They buy what will fit into their existing infrastructure with the least amount of red tape and politics.
3. People don’t change from what they have to a competitor. They’ll change to something entirely new, if it fits #1 and #2 above, but convincing them simply to switch phone services means that first you have to convince them that their previous choice was wrong. This is a losing battle.
4. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. You must earnestly believe that your product or service is going to change the world, or why should anyone bother?
So, to summarise: whatever you’re selling must be sexy and irresistable, something you believe in deeply and passionately, something fundamentally different from what they’re doing now, yet which will fit into their existing infrastructure without pain.
And that’s why selling things like phone systems or services, office supplies, cleaning services, and the like, is so very hard.
Selling luxuries, specialties, boutique niche whatever? People expect to pay a premium price, even change how they currently do things, in order to bring in the best.
Think you can’t be the best? “Best” isn’t about top quality, low price, most options. It’s about making them feel like they’re the best.
You can do that. Anyone can do that.
It’s just that so few people try.
Which gives you quite the professional edge, doesn’t it?
Post by Joel D Canfield
Randy Ingermanson’s post today linked to this article by Darren Rowse (Social Media Examiner calls him “one of the world’s leading experts on blogging”) about Darren’s research into where he was selling books.
